the
phantom with the rosy cheeks and fascinating smile, to the shadow of the
last year, and murmured: "Away from me! Come not near me, to tempt my
heart! I may not follow you--I may not, and I _will_ not."

"And I _will_ not!" he repeated quite aloud, and jumped up from his
easychair, shaking his head defiantly and proudly, like a roused lion.

"What will you not?" asked a soft voice behind him, and when he turned
round he saw at his back Baron von Leuchtmar, who had just entered, and
whose mild, gentle glances rested upon him with tender expression.

"Leuchtmar!" cried the Prince, hastening to meet him with both hands
outstretched. "God be praised, that you are here, that you come to me at
this moment! Ah! would that you had not left me at Spandow, but had
remained at my side!"

"No, my Prince! It was proper that the eyes of the people should have
greeted you alone, and that the boy, whom they had seen go off at the side
of his tutor, should now appear to them again as a bold and independent
young man, who relies upon his own powers only, and has no longer any
tutor at his side, but his own sense of duty and his conscience. But why
so sad, Prince Frederick William? Your journey was verily a triumphal
procession; like a Roman imperator you entered your father's city, and now
do I find you here, solitary, with troubled countenance, with tears upon
your cheeks?"

"With tears upon my cheeks?" repeated the Prince; "with imprecations, with
wrath, and sorrow in my heart. Oh, friend, why were you not with me? You
would have saved me perhaps from the bitterness of the last hour. You
would have stood by me, would have encouraged me!"

"My God, what has happened then?"

"It has happened that I was received as if I were some criminal returning
after a course of sin!" cried Frederick William, with indignant pain. "It
has happened that they have treated me as if I were a rioter and inciter
of rebellion, who had come hither with criminal designs, at the head of a
mob, and as a captain of robbers, who had attacked his Sovereign in his
stronghold. It has happened that they allowed me to sue for pardon upon my
knees without lifting me up--that they have treated me like an abandoned
villain, from whom they expected each hour to witness some new out-break."

"But consider, my Prince, that you had reason to expect that your
reception would be ungracious, and that it was your father from whom these
trials would come to you."

"No,